How old would you be if you didn't know how old you are?
Heard this yesterday and I can't stop thinking about it. At my advanced age of 45 I've been unwittingly collecting quotes about aging. Oh that it a typo. I just looked up and saw the number and realized it was wrong. As of April I am 48. How's that for denial?
How old would you be if you didn't know how old you are?
I'm pretty sure I am just about 35.
As women we are always ripping someone famous who has messed up their face. I have not seen the photos myself, but I am told Goldie Hawn still dresses like she did when she was 17. I've seen Laugh In, I know what she looked like in 1967. I just found a more recent photo of her that was much too close to be flattering. (grrrr, why can I no longer pinch photos from IMDB??) She could possibly pass for my age. But she was born in 1945. Meryl Streep was born in 1949. They are both in "Death Becomes Her"—a bizarre send-up of the lengths women will go to for maintaining their youthful beauty. That movie was made in 1992, and Meryl Streep was quite, quite stunning. Truly stunning. I love the way she's let herself get cozily plump and maternal looking. She's relaxed about knowing she has nothing to prove. If I were Meryl's daughter I would not be embarrassed to be seen with her in public. If I were Goldie's daughter I most certainly would. I have heard Madonna's daughter is mortified by her mother's public attire. Mutton dressed as lamb.
Mutton dressed as lamb. Goldie is doing it. Madonna does it. Joanna Lumley does it for laughs, and is hilarious as Patsy on AbFab. She always looks like she's about to topple over and— when she does there'll be nothing left but a pile of broken toothpicks. Krysten Ritter does a delightfully heartless version of the younger Patsy on "Don't Trust the B in Apartment 23". It's a damn shame the rest of the show is such puerile rubbish.
I probably don't need to make a list of all the Goldies and Melanie Griffiths out there. We've all got our favorites who've turned themselves into a horror show. Mary Tyler More broke my heart. But she started aging before modern technology. I just got lost looking up before and after photos—it really slows me down—but it was worth it. I idolized Mary in her "Dick Van Dyke" show days and it has been painful to watch her age so badly. Likewise Marlo Thomas, who I couldn't get enough of on "That Girl". A smokin' hottie. Of course I will never forget Katherine Helmond's deeply disturbing mockery of the desperate vanity of the aging beauty in Terry Gilliam's "Brazil".
Who besides Meryl has relaxed the most gracefully into old age? Diane Keaton of course. Annette Benning, Helen Mirren is one of the best. But British actors are a whole other thing. Off the top of my head, for unattractive actors who get great parts we have Oliver Platt, Paul Giamatti, Philip Seymore Hoffman, Billy Crystal, Kathy Bates. I'll think of more. (That would be a fun list for people to add to.) Not very many survive Hollywood. I'm devoted to Colin Firth, but he had to learn to smile with his mouth closed before he became a famous actor.
Okay. So there is a whole other rant about how in the UK they make brilliant movies with actors who aren't particularly good looking. I am trying so hard to stay on topic and not get completely sidetracked. It's nearly impossible. I'm hopeless.
Aging in fairy tales. I need to look into how many tales don't involve a scary old hag of some sort. Now that I think of it, that is the plot of so many of them. Another whole rant. As a child we don't think twice about the hag in our fairy tales. But now it starts to make sense. The most marginalized person in Western culture has to be the old, old, lady. Go ahead and argue with me. Why are there so many stories about witches? And so much persecution in real life? Because witchcraft is all an old lady's got to get any respect. The old crone punishes those who don't treat her with respect. Sometimes she's a witch taking testing people to see if if they are pure-hearted enough to be kind to an old hag. Beauty and the Beast. Often she's a witch who steals something from the young and beautiful so she can be beautiful too. That one comes up a lot. Rapunzel. Snow White. Cinderella. Michelle Pfeiffer has played a witch superbly.
Heard this yesterday and I can't stop thinking about it. At my advanced age of 45 I've been unwittingly collecting quotes about aging. Oh that it a typo. I just looked up and saw the number and realized it was wrong. As of April I am 48. How's that for denial?
How old would you be if you didn't know how old you are?
I'm pretty sure I am just about 35.
As women we are always ripping someone famous who has messed up their face. I have not seen the photos myself, but I am told Goldie Hawn still dresses like she did when she was 17. I've seen Laugh In, I know what she looked like in 1967. I just found a more recent photo of her that was much too close to be flattering. (grrrr, why can I no longer pinch photos from IMDB??) She could possibly pass for my age. But she was born in 1945. Meryl Streep was born in 1949. They are both in "Death Becomes Her"—a bizarre send-up of the lengths women will go to for maintaining their youthful beauty. That movie was made in 1992, and Meryl Streep was quite, quite stunning. Truly stunning. I love the way she's let herself get cozily plump and maternal looking. She's relaxed about knowing she has nothing to prove. If I were Meryl's daughter I would not be embarrassed to be seen with her in public. If I were Goldie's daughter I most certainly would. I have heard Madonna's daughter is mortified by her mother's public attire. Mutton dressed as lamb.
Mutton dressed as lamb. Goldie is doing it. Madonna does it. Joanna Lumley does it for laughs, and is hilarious as Patsy on AbFab. She always looks like she's about to topple over and— when she does there'll be nothing left but a pile of broken toothpicks. Krysten Ritter does a delightfully heartless version of the younger Patsy on "Don't Trust the B in Apartment 23". It's a damn shame the rest of the show is such puerile rubbish.
I probably don't need to make a list of all the Goldies and Melanie Griffiths out there. We've all got our favorites who've turned themselves into a horror show. Mary Tyler More broke my heart. But she started aging before modern technology. 
At around age 40 I became slightly obsessed with looking up the ages of every actress I liked in a movie or on TV. Am I comparing my aging process to theirs? Sort of. Mostly I am scrutinizing them for signs of the work they've had done. At one point in the early '90s I began to suspect that a number of actresses had seen the same artful surgeon who had given them a very similar, yet beautifully sculpted look. Daryl Hannah was the first one I noticed. Then Michelle Pfeiffer, Jodi Foster, and especially Helen Hunt. The guy who did them is a master craftsman, an amazing artist. It's a shame Meg Ryan didn't go to him. Michelle Pfeiffer is 53 and beyond beautiful. She says "I'm all for a little something here and there - fine. It doesn't matter to me if people have plastic surgery or they don't, or if they do Botox. But when people don't look like themselves anymore, that's when you kind of go, 'Oooh,' and it's kind of sad." Well said Michelle. And she can say it, because she's pulled it off better than anybody. Except we all know that no matter how beautiful you are, no matter how perfect your bones are, no one can possibly look that good at fifty three. I respect her though, because even though her looks are slightly frozen in time, her face is not frozen. She deliberately plays older women, and does it with a sense of humour. Photos of Michelle: I like the first one because she just has a natural smile, and it doesn't look so much like a pose. The next one is your perfect head shot. Glamorous, yet natural.
And here is Michelle at a party for "Dark Shadows". Holding up pretty well. But, just for a moment can we talk about that hair?? So many actresses have worn this awful do for quite some time now. I don't get it. The whole scruffy, messy thing with the dark roots showing. Who decided that women who don't want to look old should all have visible dark roots? This what your stylist does for those "candid" shots of you with that "oh I don't fuss with myself" look. The "I just stumbled out of bed and oh no there's the paparazzi" look. I could do a whole other rant on stars with that same hair.
Okay. So there is a whole other rant about how in the UK they make brilliant movies with actors who aren't particularly good looking. I am trying so hard to stay on topic and not get completely sidetracked. It's nearly impossible. I'm hopeless.
Aging in fairy tales. I need to look into how many tales don't involve a scary old hag of some sort. Now that I think of it, that is the plot of so many of them. Another whole rant. As a child we don't think twice about the hag in our fairy tales. But now it starts to make sense. The most marginalized person in Western culture has to be the old, old, lady. Go ahead and argue with me. Why are there so many stories about witches? And so much persecution in real life? Because witchcraft is all an old lady's got to get any respect. The old crone punishes those who don't treat her with respect. Sometimes she's a witch taking testing people to see if if they are pure-hearted enough to be kind to an old hag. Beauty and the Beast. Often she's a witch who steals something from the young and beautiful so she can be beautiful too. That one comes up a lot. Rapunzel. Snow White. Cinderella. Michelle Pfeiffer has played a witch superbly.
So many trains of thought here, Eden.
ReplyDeleteWhere to begin...
I am older than you are and I think I can safely say I have stopped announcing my real age online. So kudos to you for doing so. Not me, though.
Why? Simply because our culture does not respect older people--women in particular have a short shelf life. I'm gonna keep 'em guessing--and hope they guess on the young side.
I think women in the public eye in particular may be trying too hard to keep the illusion of youth. Some definitely pull it off better than others, though. Martha Stewart is 71. Nancy Pelosi is 72. They still look pretty good, I think. I would've pegged them at 50 if I didn't know any better.
(As an aside, is it just me or does Martha appear to have made a deal with the devil involving the sacrificing of goats or something? Good grief, she's scary.)
Now let me offer a word in defense of poor Mary Taylor Moore. I don't know exactly what went wrong there,(she appears to have used the same plastic surgeon as The Joker) but she is a person who's been fighting diabetes for many decades, perhaps we can view that as a mitigating factor and cut her a break.
Should we even be making such a big deal out of looks and age? The standard for viewing someone as old has been moved up about a decade from my own youth. Quite honestly, people are acting much younger than they used to across the board, and seem to remain productively involved in life and society and for much longer.
Good for us all.
http://music.yahoo.com/blogs/stop-the-presses/cher-takes-her-mom-meet-president-151934689.html
ReplyDeleteEden--When I saw this, I had to come post the link here. Cher's mum at 86.
Oh Melissa, I have so mush to say about that. The article opens with this "Ever wonder how Cher manages to look so great at age 66?" The person who wrote that must be blind. Cher has looked seriously creepy for years. She's the first one I remember getting her lips all puffed out. Her mother is dressed very tastefully, and quite obviously has a better plastic surgeon than her daughter. Please tell me that isn't what Cher wore to the white house. And Her son? He couldn't put on a jacket? No wonder I haven't seen a photo of them together before. Poor guy looks like a salesman at Best Buy who's keen to work his way up to manager.
Delete